Western New York Region Loses Ground in Effort to Reopen

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Figures posted Thursday on the State of New York's New York Forward website show that the Western New York Region has lost ground in its efforts to meet the state standards required to reopen.

The state requires that a region have a 14-day decline in hospital deaths before reopening. New York Forward on Wednesday posted a chart showing that the region had a four-day decline in deaths. That number dropped to a one-day decline in a chart posted Thursday.

A region also can fulfill the requirement if it has a three-day average of less than five deaths. Western New York's three-day average was listed as nine deaths on Thursday, the same number reported Wednesday.

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Since the state is taking a regional approach to reopening, NY ON PAUSE restrictions will remain in place for all five counties in the region — Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie and Niagara.

The state is using seven metrics to determine if a region can reopen. The Western New York Region had met five of the criteria Wednesday, but on Thursday, only four. What changed is the rate of new hospitalizations, which must be under two per 100,000 residents on a three-day rolling average. Thursday's report shows a WNY rate of 2.17.

Five of the 10 regions have met all seven standards and are scheduled to reopen Friday; two of the regions have met five standards; WNY, Long Island and New York City have met four, according to the report.

In addition to hospital death rate metric, Western New York has not met a requirement that a region have a 14-day decline in hospitalizations or less than 15 new hospitalizations (on a three-day average) to reopen. Thursday's report showed the region has had no declines in hospitalizations and has a three-day average of 28 hospitalizations. The numbers were identical to those on Wednesday's report.

The four standards that the WNY Region still meets are:

Share of total hospital beds available (threshold of 30%). The WNY percentage is 43%.

Share of total intensive care unit beds (threshold of 30%). The WNY percentage is 54%.

30 tests per 1,000 residents monthly (based on a seven-day average of new tests per day). WNY has 1,539 tests per 100,000 residents.

At least 30 contact tracers per 100,000 residents or based on infection rate. WNY is expected to meet this standard.

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